Reading section 73

39. Being settled in this belief of unity, we find ourselves by our constant practice of Yoga communion, to rest in the Supreme spirit.

40. We then find our bodies mixing with the air as an aerial substance, and at last come to the sight of Brahma with these our mortal frames.

41. Being then endued with pure, enlightened and spiritual frames, like those of Brahmá and the gods, the holy saints are placed in some part of the divine essence.

42. Without practice of yoga, you can not approach God with your mortal frame. The soul that is sullied by sense, can never see the image of God.

43. It is impossible for one to arrive at the aerial castle (objects of the wish) of another, when it is not possible for him to come to the castle (wished for object), which he has himself built in air.

44. Forsake therefore this gross body, and assume your light intellectual frame; then betake yourself to the practice of yoga, that you may see God face to face.

45. As it may be possible to realize an aerial castle by the labour of building it, so it is possible to behold God, either with this body or without it, by practice of yoga only and not otherwise.

46. And as the erroneous conception of the existence of the world, has continued since its first creation (by the will of Brahma); so it has been ever since attributed to an eternal fate—niyati (by fatalists), and to an illusory power (_máyá sakti of Máyá vadis_).

47. Lílá asked:—Thou saidst O goddess? that we shall go together to the abode of the Brahman pair, but I ask thee to tell me, how are we to effect our journey there?

48. As for me, I shall be able to go there with the purer part of my essence the sentient soul (after leaving this my gross body here). But tell me how wilt thou that art pure intellect (_chetas_), go to that place?

49. The goddess replied:—I tell thee lady, that the divine will is an aerial tree, and its fruits are as unsubstantial as air, having no figure nor form nor substance in them.

50. And whatever is formed by the will of God from the pure essence of his intelligent nature, is only a likeness of himself, and bears little difference from its original.

51. This body of mine is of the like kind, and I will not lay it aside, but find out that place by means of this as the breeze finds the odours.

52. And as water mixes with water, fire with fire and air with air, so does this spiritual body easily join with any material form that it likes.

53. But a corporeal body cannot mix with an incorporeal substance, nor a solid rock become the same with an ideal hill.

54. And as your body, which is composed both of its spiritual and mental parts, has become corporeal by its habitual tendency to corporeality.

55. So your material body becomes spiritual (_átiváhika_), by means of your leaning to spirituality, as in your sleep, in your protracted meditation, insensibility, fancies and reveries.

56. Your spiritual nature will then return to your body, when your earthly desires are lessened and curbed within the mind.

57. Lílá said:—Say goddess, what becomes of the spiritual body after it has attained its compactness by constant practice of yoga; whether it becomes indestructible, or perishes like all other finite bodies.

58. The goddess replied:—Any thing that exists is perishable, and of course liable to death; but how can that thing die which is nothing, and is imperishable in its nature? (Such is the spirit).

59. Again the fallacy of the snake in a rope being removed, the snake disappears of itself, and no one doubts of it any more.

60. Thus, as the true knowledge of the rope, removes the erroneous conception of the snake in it, so the recognition of the spiritual body, dispels the misconception of its materiality.

61. All imagery is at an end when there is no image at all, as the art of statuary must cease for want of stones on earth. (Thus they attribute materiality to the immaterial spirit from their familiarity with matter).

62. We see clearly our bodies full of the spirit of God, which you can not perceive owing to your gross understanding.

63. In the beginning when the intellect—_chit_, is engrossed with the imagination of the mind—_chitta_, it loses thenceforth its sight of the only one object (the unity of God).

64. Lílá asked:—But how can imagination have any room or trace out anything in that unity, wherein the divisions of time and space and all things, are lost in an undistinguishable mass?

65. The goddess replied:—Like the bracelet in gold and waves in water, the show of truth in dreams, and the resemblance of aerial castles:—

66. As all these vanish on the right apprehension of them, so the imaginary attributes of the unpredicable God, are all nothing whatever.

67. As there is no dust in the sky, so there can be no ascribing of any attribute or partial property to God; whose nature is indivisible and unimaginable, who is an unborn unity, tranquil and all-pervading.

68. Whatever shines about us, is the pure light of that being, who scatters his lustre like a transcendental gem all around.

69. Lílá said:—If it is so at all times, then tell me, O goddess! how we happened to fall into the error of attributing duality and diversity to His nature.

70. The goddess replied:—It was your want of reason that has led you to error so long; and it is the absence of reasoning that is the natural bane of mankind, and requires to be remedied by your attending to reason.

71. When reason takes the place of the want of reason, it introduces in a moment the light of knowledge in the soul, in lieu of its former darkness.

72. As reason advances, your want of reason and knowledge and your bondage to prejudice, are put to flight; and then you have an unobstructed liberation and pure understanding in this world.

73. As long as you had remained without reasoning on this subject, so long were you either dormant or wandering in error.

74. You are awakened from this day both to your reason and liberation, and the seeds for the suppression of your desires, are sown in your heart.

75. At first neither was this visible world presented to you nor you to it, how long will you therefore reside in it, and what other desires have you herein?

76. Withdraw your mind from its thoughts of the visitor, visibles and vision of this world, and settle it in the idea of the entire negation of all existence, then fix your meditation solely in the supreme Being, and sit in a state of unalterable insensibility (by forgetting yourself to a stone).

77. When the seed of inappetency has taken root in your heart, and begun to germinate in it, the sprouts of your affections and hatred (literally—pathos and apathy), will be destroyed of themselves.

78. Then the impression of the world will be utterly effaced from the mind, and an unshaken _anesthesia_ will overtake you all at once.

79. Remaining thus entranced in your abstract meditation, you will have in process of time a soul, as luminous as a luminary in the clear firmament of heaven, freed from the concatenation of all causes and their consequences for evermore.

CHAPTER XXII.

PRACTICE OF WISDOM OR WISDOM IN PRACTICE.

(VIJNÁNA-BHYÁSA).

SECTION I.

ABANDONMENT OF DESIRES.

_Básaná Tyága._

The goddess continued:—

As objects seen in a dream, prove to be false as the dream, on being roused from sleep and upon knowing them as fumes of fancy; so the belief in the reality of the body, becomes unfounded upon dissolution of our desires.

2. As the thing dreamt of disappears upon waking, so does the waking body disappear in sleep, when the desires lie dormant in the soul.

3. As our corporeal bodies are awakened after the states of our dreaming and desiring, so is our spiritual body awakened after we cease to think of our corporeal states.

4. As a sound sleep succeeds the dormancy which is devoid of desires (_i.e._ when we are unconscious of the actions and volition of our minds); so does the tranquillity of liberation follow the state of our inappetency even in our waking bodies.

5. The desire of living-liberated men (_jívan-muktas_), is not properly any desire at all, since it is the pure desire relating to universal weal and happiness.

6. The sleep in which the will and wish are dormant, is called the sound sleep _susupta_, but the dormancy of desires in the waking state, is known as insensibility _moha_ or _múrchhá_.

7. Again the sleep which is wholly devoid of desire, is designated the _turíya_ or the fourth stage of yoga, and which in the waking state is called _samádhi_ or union with Supreme.

8. The living man, whose life is freed from all desires in this world, is called the living liberated—_jívan-mukta_, a state which is unknown to them that are not liberated (_amukta_).

9. When the mind becomes a pure essence (as in its _samádhi_), and its desires are weakened, it becomes spiritualised (_ativáhika_), and then it glows and flows, as the snow melts to water by application of heat.

10. The spiritualised mind, being awakened (as if it were from its drowsiness or lethargy), mixes with the holy spirits of departed souls in the other world.

11. When your egoism is moderated by your practice of yoga, then the perception of the invisible, will of itself rise clearly before your mind.

12. And when spiritual knowledge gains a firm footing in your mind, you will then behold the hallowed scenes of the other world more than your expectation.